


I'll keep you safe, you keep me strong

by ellevaire



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Avengers, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fem!Steve, Fluff, Rule 63, cameos by various avengers, fem!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4484333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellevaire/pseuds/ellevaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey. We had a date, remember? You and me and a coupla malted shakes after the war was over."<br/>“I’m sorry I’m late, pal. Something came up.”</p><p>It’s been six months since she saw Bucky, six months of futile searching—Natasha was right, she was a ghost in the wind. She wasn’t going to be found unless she wanted to be.</p><p>The femslash AU literally no one asked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There's a severe lack of femslash in this fandom. My hand slipped. I'm imagining this will be around three chapters. Two are written already. I'm hopefully in the home stretch here, but then again I was thinking this whole thing would be about 5k words and I'm already at 10k. So. 
> 
> Rating may change; all mistakes are my own. Title from Bros by Wolf Alice.

Steve probably wouldn’t have heard the window slide gently open if she hadn’t been spending so much time with Natasha, but she has, and so her heart rate quickens at the near-imperceptible sound of someone dropping to the floor. Gently, Steve rolls over and cracks an eyelid and her heart leaps into her throat. The movement, of course, does not escape Bucky.

“Hey,” she says. “Can I crash on your couch maybe?”

There’s something wrong with the way she’s holding herself; her nearly waist-length hair is lank and dirty, and her prosthetic arm hangs limp at her side. And then she faints.

Bucky comes to less than two minutes later, during which time Steve moves her to the couch, panics for ten full seconds, fills a glass of water with shaking hands, and hovers nervously over Bucky’s prostrate form.

It’s been six months since she saw Bucky, six months of futile searching—Natasha was right, she was a ghost in the wind. She wasn’t going to be found unless she wanted to be.

“Shit, Steve, you look like I’m on my fucking death bed here,” Bucky says, mouth turning up in a wry smile.

“Jesus, are you alright?” It’s a little breathless, a little watery, and more than a little suspicious, but Steve’s really trying to hold back here, okay.

“Is that water for me or are you just gonna hold it all night?”

Steve rolls her eyes and passes over the glass, clearing her throat. Bucky takes a small, tentative sip.

“So, we should maybe get you to a hospital?”

“I’m—no. You trying to get me killed? I’ll see a doctor but please, no hospitals.” Bucky’s smile is small, and sad.

Steve tries to hold it in, she really does. She really, really tries, but the Winter Soldier is in her apartment and if that means she dies, then so be it. Maybe it’s not healthy (it’s really not) but she would sacrifice her entire life just for that tiny smile.

“Hey. We had a date, remember? You and me and a coupla malted shakes after the war was over.”

Because she expected more of the same cold lack of recognition she saw on the bridge or like, a murder attempt at the very least, and Bucky is here and asking for help and maybe, maybe she remembers.

“I’m sorry I’m late, pal. Something came up.”

Tears spring to Steve’s eyes.

“You’re…you’re more than welcome to use the shower if you want,” she offers, scrubbing a hand across her eyes. Bucky sits up slowly, then nods.

“Steve…I am sorry.”

It might just be the lighting, but Steve would swear up and down on a stack of Bibles that she sees tears in Bucky’s eyes, too, before the moment is broken as Bucky heads off to the bathroom while Steve marvels at the bizarre fucking circus her life has become.

“It’s easier to break the programming the longer I’m away,” Bucky whispers from her not-hospital bed. It’s more of a cot, if anything, set up in one of the spare bedrooms in the Tower. “It’s been, like six months since anyone laid a hand on me. Memory’s mostly there, a lot of hit at once, but. Seems to be catching up.”

Steve’s hands rest awkwardly in her lap, and it doesn’t escape Bucky’s notice.

“You can touch me, Steve, I’m really here.”

Bucky’s eyes flutter shut again, and Steve strokes long strands of hair out of her face with a gentle hand. Bucky had taken her prosthetic off—it sits on top of the dresser in the room—and consented to a CT scan and she’s been resting since. The IV in Bucky’s flesh arm steadily drips fluid back into her dehydrated body—of all things, it was dehydration and not, to their knowledge, something more immediately life-threatening that caused her to pass out.

There’s a light knock on the door before it opens and Banner steps into the room.

“So, you need your arm reset, because the break Steve caused never healed correctly.” His face is apologetic. “The good news, though, is that it should heal properly pretty quickly, which you probably know.

“I’m also here to pass along a message: Your brain scan looked fine,” he says. “I’m not really that kind of doctor, but Stephen Strange says it appears that whatever serum you got is repairing your brain cells. And, you know, Steve fucking around with cosmic cubes probably helped speed your memory acquisition.”

Bucky’s eyes fly open.

“YOU DID FUCKING WHAT, ROGERS? If my arm wasn’t broken, I SWEAR TO GOD…”

Banner makes a hasty exit.

Bucky comes home to Brooklyn two days later after some intense psych evals and two or three physicals and sleeps like the dead in Steve’s bed for thirteen hours. When she finally wakes, it’s to the tantalizing smell of bacon and coffee. She drags her sorry butt down the hall, only to find Steve in the kitchen shaking her (admittedly fine as hell) ass to something Bucky doesn’t know the name of, but has heard on the radio recently. Steve stops and turns around when Bucky yawns loudly.

“Hey,” she says, and even though Bucky’s standing there in dirty sweatpants and messy hair and has zero good arms since her prosthetic is fried and her other is in a sling for another few days, Steve is smiling like Bucky’s the goddamn sun.

“Hey.”

“So, in case it wasn’t totally obvious, you’re welcome to stay here. For as long as you want. And if you don’t want, that’s fine too, but I thought I’d extend the invite.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll slip up and kill you?”

Steve turns around and looks at her, and Bucky wants to flinch away from the intensity of Steve’s clear blue stare. A blush rises in her cheeks as Steve finally looks away.

“One, you would have done it already, and two, I’m not interested in living in a world where you’re alive but I don’t get to be your friend. So.” Steve finally drops her gaze and turns back to the stove.

The weight of the helicarrier fight hits Bucky square in the chest as Steve scrapes a healthy amount of scrambled egg onto a plate and loads it up with bacon and toast. Steve had been ready to die. Steve had been ready to die because she didn’t want to live without Bucky.

Jesus. It’s too early for this.

Bucky quickly discovers that her casted arm makes it difficult to eat. It’s not impossible, but she has the motor skills of a two-year-old, and she definitely can’t lift it very high. She sighs.

“Can you help me shower?” Steve looks up, startled. “I am a goddamn world class assassin and I can’t even fuckin’ shower,” Bucky mutters, shaking her head.

“Hey,” Steve says softly. “Hey, yeah, Buck, I got you. Whatever you need.”

Steve washes her carefully, blushing the whole time, like she’s never seen Bucky’s body before. Well, she hasn’t. Not this one. She gently dries Bucky off and helps her into sweatpants and a tank top, and Bucky would never, ever admit it, but she feels really fucking smug when Steve’s eyes linger on her breasts. She’s not sure how to bring it up, their relationship. The one they had. She may not remember the finer details, but Steve’s light has always, always burned through her like a forest fire. If she thinks about it too long she’ll start to fray around the edges (as if she’s not already) and it makes her tense as they settle in for a movie later that night.

“Penny for your thoughts, Buck.”

“Tell me something true.” Bucky doesn’t know how to tell Steve she needs grounding, but Steve seems to pick up on it anyway. Anxiety has left her a shaking, watery mess all day, and a sense of hopelessness and lethargy is creeping in around the edges.

“We’re here. And we’re breathing. And it’s the most I could ask for right now.”

Bucky nods, and leans into Steve’s right side, and she’s close enough that she can smell the clean scent of Steve’s laundry detergent and rest her head on Steve’s shoulder, and it’s enough.

“I need my arm back,” Bucky says, frustrated, trying really hard and not getting very far on a bowl of Cheerios. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but so had trying to read the S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra files. It’s not been a good morning.

“We can talk to Stark?”

They talk to Stark. It isn’t as bad as Bucky is expecting, because contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark does possess a modicum of propriety, she just doesn’t let many people know that. In actuality, Bucky is most nervous about how the whole, “I killed your parents but will you build me an arm” aspect of the conversation.

It turns out she doesn’t really need to worry.

“I hear you need a hand,” Stark says when they enter her lab.

Bucky puts on her best Winter Soldier eyes.

Stark momentarily blanches, but Steve rolls her eyes.

“I think I like her, Rogers. Terrifying as shit. You should keep her.”

“Excuse you, but I think I’m the one keeping Steve.”

Tony looks her up and down. “Oh, I bet you are,” she says smoothly. “Okay, Barnes, what do you want?” Tony sits down in a rolling desk chair and spins around, gesturing to the two chairs on the other side of the table.

Bucky is taken aback. “What do you mean?”

Tony looks at her. “Your arm, Bucky Bear. Your decision.” She shrugs. “Input, likes, dislikes, whatever. Hit me with your best shot.”

“You don’t want my best shot, Stark. I’m from simpler times. I’m not used to choices.” Bucky smiles, but her eyes are teary. Steve squeezes her shoulder. “Can you fix this?” She sets the arm on Stark’s desk. Her arm.

“Do you know what happened to it?”

“EMP. I can fix minor things, but this--they developed this tech to subdue me.” Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“Noted. So. Want any fancy toys? Repulsors? Canons? Vibrating attachments?” Stark waggles her eyebrows.

“Nah. I just want my arm back.”

“Fair enough.”

If she knows that Bucky killed her parents, Tony skirts the topic, tapping away on her tablet. She flicks something from her screen upwards and a scan of Bucky’s right arm (sans cast) is projected into the air.

“You interested in an Adamantium plating?”

“Yeah, but I like it silver. Gimme a shield on the shoulder to match Stevie’s.” She bumps Steve’s shoulder with her own. Steve smiles.

Stark flicks the screen again, and a holographic 3D model appears. There isn’t much difference from the old one, which is--it’s good.

Bucky shrugs. “Looks good to me. You’re the engineer, here, so.”

“We’ll see if we can’t get it more balanced with your right arm, too?”

Bucky nods. “As long as it doesn’t sacrifice the strength, and you can hook the neural impulses back up.”

“We don’t sacrifice here, Robocop. I’ll give you a ring once it’s done, and you can come play.”

By the time they leave, it’s eleven a.m. on a Thursday. Stark calls at four a.m. Saturday morning.

“Have you slept?” Steve asks, when she calls back at a reasonable hour.

“You say that like I need sleep,” Stark says, “When CLEARLY I have superhuman ability and larger than average…something. No. I haven’t slept. But I did take out a lot of superfluous junk out of the arm that seems to have just built up over a while. Sue me.”

The arm fits perfectly, because Stark is a perfectionist. She even managed to increase the pressure sensors without the sensation being overwhelming, which would sometimes happen when Hydra scientists made adjustments. Bucky doesn’t know how to thank her.

“You’re alright, Stark,” she says, giving a small smile. It’s as close as she can get to thanks, but Tony doesn’t seem to mind.

When the cast comes off (it only takes three days of sitting around and moping, trying to figure out where she stands with herself and everyone else she’s met so far), Bucky is thrilled to be able to get back into the gym and test out her new cybernetic. She plays around with a set of throwing knives, and her first throw leaves a knife embedded to the hilt in the wall. She texts Stark a picture of herself giving a thumbs up next to the knife, and Stark responds with a wide-eyed and vaguely alarmed-looking emoji.

Bucky is making progress, and she’s proud of that. Working out and forcing herself to complete even the most menial tasks gives her a weak sense of purpose, but a sense of purpose nonetheless, and help to stave off feelings of guilt and worthlessness. Even supersoldiers can only work out so much though, so she works on compiling information on the two Hydra bases she didn’t destroy after pulling Steve out of the river (she’d had to stop when she’d been stupid and gotten her arm fried) and working through the movies on Steve’s list.

Two weeks after her cast is off, Bucky’s finishing up the Hydra data and Steve’s out doing whatever national icons do when Bucky’s phone buzzes.

“Hello?”

“Bucky?”

“Who else would it be?” Bucky jokes, but something in her chest feels tight, because Steve’s voice is tight.

“They know.”

“What?”

“Someone got cell phone footage of you in DC and figured out…we’re not really sure, but you’re all over the news right now.”

Bucky tries not to panic.

“What do I do?”

“You don’t have to do anything. Nobody seems to know where you are now or what your actual identity is, so just…lay low, I guess? If you want. You don’t have to come out if you don’t want to.”

Bucky can hear voices in the background on Steve’s end of the line.

“I have to go but…talk to you when I get back? And you can always call me if you need something,” Steve says, probably trying to reassure herself more than anyone.

Bucky sits on the couch and stews a little bit, and then sits and stews some more. She knows she doesn’t have to come out, but she doesn’t want to hide forever. Been there, done that.

She calls Natalia.

Natalia arrives in a suspiciously short amount of time. Her hair is short and curly and blonde, and she’s wearing far too much eyeliner this early in the morning. Steve had said she was laying low, which explains the goth look, but Bucky figured it would be in a remote safe house, and not shacked up with Barton in the Tower, which is what Bucky suspects. (That’s not to say Barton isn’t worthy of Natalia’s time—he’s not and he knows it, which probably makes him worthy by power of his own self-awareness—or that he’s not a damn fine-looking fella. Bucky might be biased, though, she does tend to have a thing for hot blonds.)

“I’m sorry, Natalia.”

“Natasha,” she murmurs.

“Natasha.”

“You don’t have to apologize. What’s done is done,” Natasha says, taking the armchair opposite Steve’s couch.

“Doesn’t make it suck less,” Bucky says.

“No, no it does not.” Natasha stares at her. “Why am I here, Jaime?”

“Because you’re the only one who knows what I’ve been through. And you’re the only one who came out the other side.”

“They’re going to eat you alive, Yasha.”

“They can try.”

Natasha pulls out her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling backup.”

“Hi,” the short one says, sticking out her hand. Bucky takes it. “Janet Van Dyne. Wasp.”

“Jen Walters,” the green one says, “Also known as She-Hulk. Lawyer practicing superhuman law.”

“Hi. Bucky Barnes, brainwashed human disaster assassin?” Bucky says, shaking Jen’s hand.

“Not for long, Buckaroo. We’re gonna work on that image,” Jan says, pulling out coffee mugs. “How do you take it?”

“Black, please.”

Jan scrunches her nose. Natasha drops a folder on the table. Bucky recognizes it immediately. She knows what’s in it, she was self-aware enough to read her own file after tearing the bank vault and everyone in it to shreds.

“I think we should leak your file,” Jen says. “If you’re okay with it.”

“Is that really a good idea? People are going to know what I…”

“People would also know what kind of torture you’ve been through, Bucky.” Jan hands her a steaming mug.

“You’re America’s oldest and longest prisoner of war,” Jen says. “I know this is kind of heavy to dive right into, so if you need us to back off, let us know, but…you don’t deserve to be villainized for the actions of others, and you should know that.”

“Do you really think we can convince people of that, though?” Bucky asks skeptically.

“You’ve got Captain America and the Avengers at your back. We’ll do our best to try.”

“Yeah, and why? Why would you help me? You shouldn’t even trust me.”

“Steve does,” Natasha says. “She trusted you when I didn’t. I mean, you did try to kill her, but you broke your programming doing it.”

“And, dude,” Jan says, “You’re a living legend. You’re Cap’s best friend, we know how much you mean to her.”

“Also, she’s fucking miserable without you. Anything that gets Steve Rogers to mope less is a good thing.”

“Stevie has always been a grumpy bitch,” Bucky says fondly.

“‘Grumpy bitch’ doesn’t even cover it,” Natasha says. “Remind me to tell you about Steve’s fucking Sadness Errands sometime.”

“Are you sure?”

“Just do it,” Bucky says, “I’m tired. And I’m tired of hiding.”

Natasha clicks around the screen and a blue bar flashes momentarily, and then—File Upload: 100%.

“And now we play the waiting game.”

Bucky expects mostly outrage from news networks and definite outrage from the U.S. government. She doesn’t expect to break the internet. Jen begged off to get back to work, but promises to look into legal defense for Bucky, and when Steve comes home, Bucky, Jan, and Natasha are glued to Steve’s laptop and their own tablets, respectively.

“Do I want to know?” Steve’s trying hard to be lighthearted, but her smile is tight.

“So I may have…” Bucky turns the laptop to face Steve.

The page is open to CNN, and her face is the only thing visible on the page.

JAIME BARNES FILE LEAK: STILL ALIVE?

INSIDE HYDRA: PROJECT WINTER SOLDIER

IS HYDRA STILL STANDING? VIEW FULL REPORT

“You didn’t have to,” Steve says, frowning. “We could have—“

“I wanted to,” Bucky says softly.

“Okay,” Steve says. “Okay.” She drops down on the couch next to Bucky and wraps her in a tight hug.

“Whatever happens, happens. I understand if they want to—y’know.”

“They don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell at getting to you,” Steve says, clenching her jaw.

They don’t. Steve essentially tells everyone at Bucky’s trial to fuck off, then walks out. It’s kind of glorious.

“Sergeant Barnes, how would you defend your actions against the citizens and the government of the United States?”

“Sir, I cannot defend my actions. But I can tell you that HYDRA experimented, tortured, and wiped my memory on multiple occasions—”

“Sergeant Barnes, if you can’t—”

“Sir,” Steve says, standing to her full (and, honestly, somewhat intimidating) height. “Sergeant Barnes has been the subject of scientific experimentation that left her unable to control her actions. She was manipulated into carrying out actions she certainly would not have performed if in control of her facilities. Sergeant Barnes was captured shortly before my ‘death’ and spent the time I was frozen as a prisoner of war. She has endured things that no person should endure and that most wouldn’t survive.”

“And how do you know that she won’t revert back to that mentality?”

Steve’s glare could shatter glass.

“Sir, I have spent the past month recovering privately, both mentally and physically.” Bucky hands over a sheaf of papers. “HYDRA’s psychological experimentation was extensively documented, and they--many subjects didn’t survive it. Since then, however, Doctor Stephen Strange was unable to find conclusive evidence of permanent memory damage and Doctor Leonard Samson has cleared my psychological evaluations.”

“Arresting Sergeant Barnes on trumped-up treason charges is using her as a scapegoat and benefits no one,” Steve says. “It’s a pathetic manipulation of her image, though no less than what I expect after seeing how my own image is used as propaganda. And if you arrest her, you will lose me as a superhuman asset.” She tugs Bucky’s hand and they stalk out of the Capitol Building, leaving poor Jen to handle the fallout.

It’s kind of glorious.

(They owe Jen like, fifty fruit baskets.)

So now that she exists, Bucky works on getting her back pay. (Stark may have pulled a few strings on that one, and Bucky’s got Jen Walters, Actual Miracle Worker, at her back. “Work the system, baby,” she had said, grinning gleefully.)

Then she spends the rest of her time annoying Steve, going to therapy, watching movies, and meeting the other Avengers. Her therapist is a woman named Helen who is in her fifties. She’s gentle when Bucky needs her to be, but has a steel resolve and refuses to let Bucky’s depression get the best of her. She puts Bucky on some superhuman-grade SSRI’s for the time being, which seem to help for now even if the eventual goal is to live medication-free. They work on finding Bucky activities she can use as outlets, which include but aren’t limited to cooking, building muscle and agility, writing in a journal, and knitting. Something about attention to detail and a sense of accomplishment.

Natasha comes by for lunch every few days and they keep working on patching things up after the disaster that was their breakup and also that time Bucky tried to kill her. Barton visits and challenges Bucky to an ongoing shooting contest; Lucky visits for cuddles, pizza, and treats under the table.

After a while, Bucky becomes painfully aware that she’s worn nothing but Steve’s clothes for over a month now, and so when Jan breezes in again with a stylish pixie cut and an artfully hipster outfit, they go internet shopping.

Bucky always liked looking as stylish as you could when you were a poor kid, and Jan understands that. She even ends up sending Bucky a wardrobe in itself of her own design, everything from workout gear to evening wear, and to say that Bucky is overwhelmed by the amount of acceptance she receives from the team is an understatement.  

“They know it wasn’t you,” Steve says when Bucky brings it up.

“Still doesn’t mean I deserve their trust.”

“You’re not the only one with a past, Buck.”

Bucky wants to ask Steve why she even bothered trying to save her, but she’s a little afraid of the answer, and the words die in her throat.

The cold weather breaks a little, and when it’s slightly less frigid she and Steve celebrate by bundling up and going for a long run outside. As usual, it feels good to do something that’s not sitting on the couch alone with her thoughts.

They’re sweating when they get back to Steve’s apartment, and Bucky immediately strips off her shirt and goes for the orange juice.

“Shower’s all yours, Stevie.” Bucky doesn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes rake over her body before she nods, and wonders a little bit. What if. They haven’t talked about it, not with the trial and Bucky working her way from Brainwashed Disaster Assassin back to Actual Human, but Bucky can’t help the tight ball of want that’s burning away in her chest.

Bucky is laying on the floor trying to cool down when Steve leaves the bathroom, wet and wrapped in a towel. Bucky sears the image into her mind, and stands up to take her turn.

It’s not so much that Bucky’s hoping Steve will get the hint and straight up jump her bones, but it might be, a little. Of course, it would be fine if Steve would just talk to her, but Steve has been frustratingly courteous and diligent in avoiding talking about anything between them. If there’s anything left.

Bucky should be grateful that they’ve re-established their friendship, but she’s itchy with the feeling that they could be because they have been. She wants to bring it up that night, as they’re catching up on Steve’s list and watching Episode VI. She leans her head against Steve’s left shoulder, and Steve immediately lifts her arm and curls it around Bucky’s shoulders. She wants to bring it up as Steve laughs (at Leia strangling Jabba, of all the fucking things) but chickens out. She was never the brave one.

“You know, as a raging queer, I’m delighted with the metal bikini, but as a feminist I am fucking appalled at its popularity in mainstream culture,” Steve says.

“You should try it out in the field, it seems to work for her,” Bucky says.

“Nah, Angela has the corner market on metal bikinis right now. Chip me, Barnes,” Steve says, making grabby hands at the tortilla chips and bowl of salsa sitting next to Bucky.

Bucky rolls her eyes and passes the bowls over, squeaking when the movement causes her to burrow further into Steve’s couch, which is, by far, Bucky’s favorite thing about the future. She also slides deeper into Steve’s side, flinching a little when Steve’s arm tightens around her. She relaxes, but Steve’s muscles are tense beneath her.

She’s a recovering, brainwashed assassin who has been touch-starved for the last seventy years. Sue her.

“You know,” Bucky says, trying to lighten the mood, “I’m a ladies’ lady at heart, but Han Solo could get it.”

Steve barks out a shocked laugh.

“I would ride his Millennium Falcon all over the gal—“ Steve cuts her off with a hand over Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky licks it, because really, Steve should have been expecting that. Steve’s breath hitches and her fingers taste salty from the tortilla chips and she pauses for a moment before pulling her hand away and wiping it on her sweats, scrunching her nose.

“I mean yeah, who wouldn’t,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow.

Bucky cackles.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just gonna Facebook Harrison Ford and tell him that America’s longest living bisexual national icon wants to fuck him seven ways to Sunday.”

Steve falls asleep just after the credits start to roll and Bucky isn’t far behind. She knows, knows the right thing to do would be to take the bed Steve won’t let her not sleep in, but maybe…maybe it would be okay if she fell asleep here. Just for a little bit. Breathing in the clean scent of Steve, of her shampoo, on Steve’s super soldier-sized couch. Bucky has just enough foresight to tug the soft blanket from the back of the couch over them before she follows Steve into sleep.

For the first time in a week, neither of them jolt awake with nightmares (Steve has them too, Bucky hears them, okay) and Bucky sleeps so soundly she doesn’t even notice Steve getting up and dressed for her morning run. She wakes up just as Steve is filling a water bottle.

“You coming, lazy ass?”

Bucky inhales deeply and nods, stumbling into her running gear and re-braiding her hair before they take off down the stairs and out into the brisk morning.

The air is different between them, this morning—it’s charged in a way Bucky can’t describe, and it makes their run more competitive than usual. They chase each other all over Brooklyn, changing lead every few minutes and pushing each other harder and harder until they finally end up circling back to the coffee shop across from Steve’s building; once they’re suitably (psychologically) caffeinated, they shove each other and race up the stairs to Steve’s apartment.

Bucky waves Steve toward the shower. Steve has a Cap thing later—a photoshoot or a press conference or a meeting or something. Bucky’s only plans involve lifting with Jan and Jen Walters and maybe some Thai food later, so she starts more coffee for her and Steve and turns music on Steve’s speakers while dicing up fruit for a fruit-and-kale smoothie. (The NutriBullet is another beautiful thing about the future.)

She’s so caught up in blending her smoothie and dancing along to the iPod the only thing alerting her to Steve’s presence is the quiet laugh from behind.

She spins. Steve is holding her cell phone up. She looks beautiful—even with her cropped hair dripping onto her fuzzy blue robe, her smile looks genuinely happy before it turns into a familiar, shit-eating grin.

“What are you doing?” Bucky demands.

“Nothing.”

“Rogers.” Bucky lunges after her, because no one should look that gleeful post-run.

“Nothing, swear on Ma’s grave,” Steve says, dancing just out of Bucky’s reach. She hits a button on the phone and throws her arms up victoriously.

“What. Did. You. Do.”

Steve is completely unfazed by Bucky’s angry face, but tosses her the phone.

Steve’s Twitter page is up. Her most recent tweet (26s ago)—“So you can tweet videos now,” Steve says innocently—and Bucky can see that, because Steve’s most recent tweet is a video of Bucky in her running leggings and sports bra, dancing around the kitchen to—“SLOW DOWN, GRAB THE WALL, WIGGLE LIKE YA TRYNA MAKE YA ASS FALL OFF.”

“Rogers,” Bucky says seriously. “Have I told you lately…that I think you’re a massive loser and a terrible friend?”

“Aww, Buck, it’s like you know me,” Steve says, throwing herself at Bucky and pressing a sloppy, slobbery kiss to Bucky’s cheek while Bucky shrieks like the devil.

"Your Ma didn't deserve an asshole like you, Rogers."

“Play nice, ladies,” Jan says, stepping behind them and stealing a sip of Bucky’s smoothie before handing it to her.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me, Steve. Bucky, you ready to go?”

“Let’s do this.”

The gym is exactly what Bucky needs. Since she can lift again, she’s been trying to put on muscle so the prosthetic doesn’t rip her spine out. (To be fair, this lighter one probably wouldn’t, especially not with the adamantium plating bonded to her clavicle, scapula, and spine, but Bucky doesn’t particularly want to test it.)

They’ve barely been working out for an hour (in one of Tony’s gyms, floor 14, the gym with weights, a track, and every thinkable machine) when Jen flips the TV on to Fox News.

“Jen. Jenny-Jen-Jen, what are you doing and why do you hate us,” Jan asks from the weight bench, where she’s lifting more than should actually be possible for her tiny frame.

Jen throws her a look.

“This is the channel Steve’s on…now.”

The title flashes on screen before the camera cuts to Steve. She’s wearing a royal blue blazer over a fitted dress Bucky bought her when she was laid up and internet shopping like nobody’s business. The blue complements her eyes beautifully. Bucky swoons a little, then frowns.

“Jan, what’s wrong with this channel?” Bucky asks.

“Oh, just you wait.”

Jen nods in solemn agreement.

The interviewer smiles and turns to Steve.

“Captain Rogers, welcome. Thanks for being with us here today—it is, correct me if I’m wrong, your first visit here, yes?”

“It is, thank you for having me.” Steve smiles beatifically at the camera.

“Let’s get down to it. So, you’ve had some down time after the Triskelion incident. What have you been doing since then?”

“Well, even super soldiers take some time to recover from the injuries I had. So I watched a lot of Star Trek, I guess.” Steve’s laugh is self-deprecating.

“Any response to the rumors you’re looking for the Winter Soldier?”

“Well, if you saw the trial transcription, you’ll know that she’s been recovering under supervision for the past month or so, but that’s all I’m willing to say about it.” Steve ratchets up her charming smile. The interviewer takes it in stride.

“I don’t know if you know this, but there’s some cell phone footage floating around from the bridge crash.” The interviewer gestures at a screen somewhere off camera, and shaky footage of Steve and Bucky fighting flashes on the television. It pauses and zooms in on a blurred shot of Bucky, sans mask.

“Any response to speculation that the Winter Soldier will be tried as a terrorist?”

Bucky snorts. Maybe they didn’t read the trial transcript, or Steve was, as she usually is, right about them manipulating her image to fit an agenda.

“Any speculation is news to me, sir,” Steve says. It’s a blatant lie—Steve does nothing but watch the news, because she’s ninety-five, even when Bucky just wants to watch Project Runway, god, can we please, this one time, Steve.

The interviewer is clearly displeased that he isn’t able to get a rise out of Steve.

“Okay, since you mentioned Star Trek: How is the twenty-first century treating you so far?”

Steve pauses.

“You know, it’s better and worse than I would have expected. Obviously I never…never really anticipated surviving the plane crash, but it’s encouraging to see the advances in science and medicine and technology. I can’t imagine how much better my quality of life would have been if I’d had the medicines we have now.

“I had kind of hoped we would have progressed further with equal rights for marginalized individuals, though. I know you can’t win them all, but the freedoms being denied to minority groups are the freedoms that I went to war for seventy years ago.”

The interviewer is thrown.

“When you say that there are freedoms being denied to minority groups, what exactly do you mean by that?”

“I meant exactly what I said, sir,” Steve says politely. “It’s different depending on the group, but we as a country have a shameful track record in protecting people who need protection, specifically, black, Muslim, disabled, and transgender individuals.”

“PREACH,” Jen yells from the weight bench.

“So you would reject the cultural conception that you stand for this country’s traditional values?”

“What exactly are those values?”

“Well, you know, the traditional family—man and a woman with kids and a dog, maybe a white picket fence, church on Sundays, that sort of thing…”

Bucky smirks. He’s in for it now. Asshole.

“Listen,” Steve says, and god, this is going to be everything Bucky never knew she wanted from life.

“I grew up in a single parent household. My mother was an Irish Catholic immigrant. I know she faced discrimination, but she would never tell me the extent of it and I don’t know if I want to know. So no, I guess I don’t stand for what you think I do. I didn’t grow up in a ‘traditional household,’ whatever that may be. I have had no control over how the media has shaped my image over the past sixty or seventy years, but I’m sorry to disappoint you. And I also disagree with your heterosexist conceptualization of the average American family.”

Jen wolf-whistles.

“My what?”

“Your ‘traditional’ family is detrimental to the LGBTQIA community.” Steve is barely keeping her anger in check. Her smile looks like teeth bared and ready for a fight, although, also, when is Steve not ready for a fight. “It is detrimental to my community, and I’m having a hard time describing how much modern America’s erasure of my identity pisses me the fuck off.”

Bucky almost falls off the weight bench. Steve’s anger has always been a thing to behold, and it simultaneously chills Bucky to the bone and ignites her own desperate need to have Steve’s back in a fight. It’s so quiet in the studio you could hear a pin drop.

“Did she just—“ Jan trails off.

“I think she did,” Bucky says.

“I meant exactly what I said. I was an openly queer woman in the military during a time when that could have gotten me killed. One of the things about growing up thinking you’ll be dead before thirty is that you stop trying to be what people want you to be because it doesn’t matter. Agent Peggy Carter knew it. All of the Howling Commandos knew it. Imagine my dismay when I wake up and find out I’ve been reimagined as a symbol of something I’m not.”

Steve isn’t even trying to keep up the charade anymore, openly glaring now.

“Alright, alright, so what I’m getting is that you’re into women, but Cap—you’re too pretty to be a lesbian!” The interviewer laughs, still trying to regain control of the situation.

“And you’re too old to be making a pass at me, but here we are.” Steve’s voice is ice. “If all you’ve taken away from this interview is that I’m attracted to women, you may want to consider watching this recording. I’m bisexual. And we’re done here.”

Steve walks out.

“Oh, shit,” Jan says.

Bucky knows the feeling.

“She wasn’t lying,,” Bucky mutters. “Did she know? What that station is like?”

“She had to have,” Jen says. “She’s pissed about what people have done with her image over the years, so yeah, it makes sense to do what she did there. But she could have, you know. Told us. Instead of doing this completely alone.”

“Did you know?” Bucky asks.

“No, we didn’t,” Jan says. “Like she said, people have done a lot of work to cover that up. It’s not even hinted at in history books or anything. We’ve been thinking that she’s just a private person—“ Bucky snorts. “—I know. But it occurred to me that she’s just not comfortable with us, which I’m sorry for. I should have made more of an effort to be a friend and ally.” Jan’s forehead creases in worry.

“Well. There’s still time, y’know but uh. I think I need to go. And no offense, but she did live in Dupont Circle. And, um, Park Slope.”

Realization dawns on their faces; Bucky packs her bag silently and all but sprints out of the building. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint breaks in, but at least he brings pie. And a dog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to formally apologize for the utter lack of plot, but also, it's sort of fluff? I'm kind of sorry?

The train back to Brooklyn gives Bucky far too much time to think about what she’s going to say to Steve when Steve gets back. Even after stopping at the store, she beats Steve there, which she pretty much expected. Bucky showers and is getting started on making a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches when she hears the door unlocking. Steve bypasses the kitchen and heads straight for the bathroom, and Bucky plates the grilled cheeses (two sandwiches and a big bowl of soup for each of them) then sets everything on a tray in the oven to keep it all warm, and queues up His Girl Friday on Netflix.

Steve finally emerges, fresh-faced, dressed in yoga leggings and an SSR hoodie.

Her phone rings, and she looks at the display for a second before answering with a grimace.

“Rogers.”

Bucky guesses the other person on the line is Fury, and he doesn’t sound happy.

“No. No,” Steve says. “I’ve been good. I’ve been your janitor for how fucking long now, and I kept my mouth shut because that’s what you needed in an operative. Well, all our secrets are out now, right? I’m not stupid. I know what they’ve done with my image. But I’m done hiding behind the shield, so to speak.”

Bucky hears Fury say something like, “You were supposed to be the easy one, Rogers” on the other end of the line. Steve laughs mirthlessly.

“Perk of the serum. I’ve got a lot of fight left. You can either have me out and on your side, or out and not on your side. I don’t care either way, not anymore.” She hangs up, tossing her phone onto the couch.

“There’s the Stevie I know,” Bucky says.

She sits heavily and stares at the screen for a moment before bursting into tears. Bucky sets the tray on the coffee table, slopping a little soup over the side of the bowls, before pulling Steve into her side.

“Hey, hey. Come here.”

Bucky opens her arm and Steve just sort of falls into them, hooking her legs over Bucky’s lap and burying her face in her chest.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

Steve sniffles.

“It’s just…when I died, I wanted it to matter. I’m not stupid. I know what people think I stand for but now I’m stuck with this uphill battle all over again and…who knows if it’s going to matter this time? I know what this country could be, and I know what it isn’t, and I feel like I’m never going to matter because people make me what they want.”

Bucky doesn’t really know what to say to this, so she squeezes Steve a little tighter.

“I’m not even a person to them, Buck. I’m a symbol, or a weapon, or whatever.”

“Don’t I know the feeling,” Bucky mutters.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—I know you do. And here I am blubbering and you made dinner and everything, Jesus.”

“Hey, no. It’s okay. Take your time.”

“Tell me something true, Buck,” Steve whispers.

“You’re allowed to have problems, Stevie. You’re allowed to be human.”

Steve bursts into a fresh round of tears and mushes her face back into Bucky’s sternum, and Bucky rubs a gentle hand up and down her back.

“It’s gonna be okay. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. We’ll get there.”

“Thanks.”

Bucky presses a kiss to the top of Steve’s head.

“Anytime, pal. Anytime.”

 

Bucky reheats the soup and they start the movie. The grilled cheese is one of the best Bucky has ever had, because they can afford fancy cheese and thick, fresh bread now. (Her therapist recommended the combination of muenster and sharp cheddar, and Helen hasn’t let her down yet.) She almost wants to cry at the excitement of experiencing such a thing for the first time, but reels herself in. Mostly.

As the movie ends, Bucky pulls out her secret weapon, which is ice cream, and Barton’s dog. She hands Steve a pint of Half Baked just as there’s a knock on the door. When she opens it, Lucky the dog comes barreling in, followed by a slightly battered Clint Barton. Lucky races around the apartment, doing a quick perimeter check, and trots back to sit happily at Clint’s feet.

“Hey, dude, thanks for babysitting on short notice. Not that Nat doesn’t like dogs, but,” Clint kneels down and covers Lucky’s ears, “I don’t think Lucky here has watched enough Dog Cops to go undercover yet.” He lifts his hands and rubs Lucky’s head. “Have you? Have you, boy? No, not yet, huh, buddy?” Lucky’s tail wags so hard it looks like it might fall off. “Go ahead, buddy, go say hi to Steve.”

Lucky trots over to steve, resting his big head on her thigh, tail still wagging.

“Steve?” Clint says. Steve looks up, and Clint gives her a double thumbs up. “Maybe don’t look at the news right now, but about half of Twitter and most bloggers on Tumblr love you. Just sayin’. Anyway, we shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of days, so. Later.”

 

So that’s the story of how Steve gets a Tumblr.

Her URL is rogersthat, which she gets by asking politely (only Steve, Bucky thinks) and only after she sets up a basic profile and about page does she venture into her tag. (Her icon is a bathroom selfie, which Bucky knows Tony will absolutely mock her for later, and her description is “the official tumblr of steve rogers a.k.a. captain america which shield can’t take away from her because it doesn’t exist anymore :) :).” Bucky almost pisses herself laughing because for all that Steve is a national icon, she’s still barely twenty-six.)  

They let Lucky onto the couch, where he curls up on Steve’s other side, and then she and Bucky spend an hour on the couch reading the positive responses to the interview in Steve’s tag, which sends Steve into another crying fit, even if it’s happy tears. Lucky noses his head into her lap and licks her hand. Steve spends another hour or so talking to people. She sends messages to young, confused LGBT+ youth posting in her tag about how having a role model like Steve has helped them, and encourages people whose comings-out didn’t go as well as hers. She responds to people who say Steve gave them the courage to come out, and to people who are incoherent with appreciation at having their identities validated, and in a way that firmly rebuked everything people think Steve stands for.

Once people realize that Steve’s blog is her actual blog and not a roleplay blog, she’s flooded with follows and asks.

“thank you for doing what you did. it gave me the courage to come out to my parents and even though they weren’t receptive your interview gave me the strength to be true to myself so thank you”

“have you slept with men and women?”

“post a selfie so we know it’s really you?”

Steve answers the first, ignores the second, and pulls Bucky in close for a selfie of the two of them and Lucky in the laptop’s photobooth. Steve is smirking in her SSR hoodie, blonde hair sticking every which way, and Bucky looks slightly less murderous than usual, one eyebrow raised and the faintest of smiles playing around her mouth. Steve opens the ask, attaches the photo, and types “it me, post interview looks + movie night with my faves” and publishes.

“Oh, so I’m your favorite, Rogers?”

Steve blushes to her hairline.

“Yeah, even if I don’t know why I keep you, Barnes.”

“Oh, so now you’re keeping me. I see how it is.”

“Just can’t get enough of you, you jerk.”

Bucky wants to ask how much of her would be enough, if Steve wants the same things she wants, if Steve has ever slept with a woman before.

“Have you?” she asks, and fuck, shit pissing fuck, that was not supposed to come out.

“Have I what?”

You’re committed now, Barnes, she thinks. Just rip off the bandage.

“Nevermind,” Bucky says, blush heating her face.

“I’ve slept with women before, if that’s what you were going to ask,” Steve says, clearing her throat. She’s blushing, but not as much as Bucky, who feels like her face might melt off.  “I--I um. Yeah. A few times, with Sam. I don’t mind talking about it. To you, at least. What about you?” She nudges Bucky’s shoulder with her own.

“Uh. Natasha and I had a thing once. She was my only, and then things got hairy and I tried to kill her, and, well, you know,” Bucky says. “Wait, Sam?”

Steve’s blush intensifies, but she nods.

The thing is, Bucky is in way over her head now. Steve wouldn’t sleep with people who aren’t Good People. From what she’s heard of Sam, Sam is like, perfect. Bucky should really be more resentful of her beautiful, flawless skin and her glowing, perfect smile, but she’s finding it physically impossible to feel any sort of animosity. Everyone loves Sam, it seems, even ex-assassins who have tried to kill her. Anyway, the whole Good People thing doesn’t bode well for her own future with Steve. She needs to not let that get to her, she needs to be happy for Steve and not let it get to her, come on.

“That’s great,” Bucky says with forced brightness in her voice. “Are you two--y’know.”

Steve stares at her hands for a second, then pets Lucky and decidedly avoids eye contact when she says, “No. Sam’s like, the most well-adjusted person I know.” (Of course she is.) “And I know--she deserves someone who can give her everything.”

“And you couldn’t?”

Steve’s smile is bitter. “No, I couldn’t. Can’t. I’m still dealing with stuff. I’ve got too much shit on my plate and in my head, it’s not fair to her.” She finally stops petting Lucky to meet Bucky’s gaze, and then immediately drops it.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, because what else does she say? Sleep with me instead? I’m definitely less well-adjusted than Sam but if I remember one thing it’s loving you? Yeah, Barnes. That’ll go over well.

“It happens,” Steve says, stretching and gathering their plates and the mostly-melted carton of ice cream from the coffee table. She rinses the plates, puts the ice cream in the freezer, and returns with two treats for Lucky, but doesn’t sit back down.

“I think I’m going to head to bed.”

“Yeah, same,” Bucky says, suddenly feeling a lot more tired than she had ten minutes ago.

“Goodnight, Buck. Thank you, for everything.”

“Night, Stevie.”

 

Once Bucky has gone through the routine of brushing her teeth, taking her meds, and changing into her pajamas, she feels wired. Lucky hops onto the foot of her bed and falls asleep almost immediately, but Bucky lays in bed with her eyes open for god knows how long, staring at the ceiling and obsessively replaying her conversation with Steve in her head. It doesn’t accomplish anything, other than a niggling anxiety blooming in the back of her mind. She doesn’t cry, she’s just--totally emotionally exhausted and worried she’s fucked up irreparably by the time she even begins to doze fitfully. Sometime later, she hears Steve’s breathing pattern change through the wall, and then there’s a faint knock on her door before it opens.

“Can I?” Steve says, gesturing to the bed.

Bucky lifts the comforter in invitation. Steve slides in, tucking herself into Bucky’s warmth.

It might be new for these bodies, but it feels familiar.

“I can’t do it alone, not tonight,” Steve mumbles against Bucky’s pillow, and Bucky curls her arm slowly around Steve’s solid body.

“It's okay. I can hear you thinking, Buck,” Steve whispers. “Go to sleep.”

For once, Bucky listens.

 

Bucky wakes up feeling more refreshed than she has in ages, but also full of pent-up energy. She gets Lucky up for his morning bathroom break (he looks betrayed and scandalized that Bucky would even imagine waking him up so early) and fills his bowls with kibble and fresh water. She and Steve get ready for their usual morning run and if Steve doesn’t say anything about last night, Bucky’s not hurt, not really, even if an iota of clarification about Steve’s feelings would go a long way. They’re out at the asscrack of dawn, as normal, and Bucky can’t help it, she spends half her time sprinting ahead and back to Steve, hoping she doesn’t come off as agitated and irritable as she is. After a while, Steve sprints with her and they race to their usual post-run coffee place. Bucky wins by a few seconds, then sprints straight past to get Lucky from Steve’s apartment.

Steve is waiting for them outside the coffee place, which is across from the apartment and flies a Pride flag behind the bar. Part of the reason Steve likes it, Bucky suspects. The girl behind the counter (Melissa, Bucky’s brain supplies) greets them with a smile, despite the early hour.

“The usual?” she asks.

“And two cups of water, please? Stevie here couldn’t keep up today,” Bucky says, slinging an arm around Steve’s shoulder. The effect is probably ruined by Steve’s eye roll and the fact that her breathing has already returned to normal.

“Oh my god. Oh my--I’m such a fucking idiot. You’ve been coming here for months. Sorry. Oh my god,” Melissa says, dark skin flushing darker. She looks at Bucky. “And you’re--oh my god. Shit. I’m sorry, I’m usually more composed, but I'm doing my thesis on the importance of queer women in the military during the World Wars and oh my god, shut up, Melissa.”

Steve is blushing and holding back a smile, and even Bucky is smirking.

"It's okay," Steve says. "I'd love to hear more about your thesis, and, um. Honestly, it makes me happy that there are people out there who don't buy into the whole symbol thing. Forgive my forwardness, but if you were looking for another primary source I'd be happy to help."

"Oh god. Captain America wants to help me with my thesis. Can we all like, take a selfie? My girlfriend is never going to believe this."

They all squeeze in for a selfie and Steve gives Melissa her number, promising to make time for an interview in the near future.

“All that for one student and you won’t do another interview.”

“I don’t want the same five or six questions over and over again. But if I can tell the truth to someone who will actually listen, or if I can make a positive difference in one person’s life, then that, to me, is worth it,” Steve says.

“You’re somethin’ else, Rogers,” Bucky says as they walk back out into the chilly morning.

 

Steve had gotten a text from Natasha about a super-stealthy-top-secret mission while she and Bucky were waiting for their lattes, and so Bucky takes Lucky on a short walk around the block alone. She’s trying to focus on the breathing exercises Helen linked her to instead of the irritability she seems to be feeling more often than not these days. She heads back to the apartment with the full intention of clearing her head with a nap and maybe hitting the gym later.

Instead, she finds Barton sitting at the kitchen table, slumped over an entire pot of coffee, two butterfly bandages presumably holding his right eyebrow together.

“I thought you said a couple of days,” Bucky says.

“I said ‘no more than’ a couple of days. Which we weren’t. Just your basic ‘Infiltrate-Gala-With-Honeypot, Beat Up Bad Guys’ type of deal,” Barton says into the table. “It was my turn to be the honeypot, turns out this dude had a thing for leggy blonds, so.” He sits up, gesturing at himself. “Obvious choice, right here.”

Bucky just stares.

“Hey, wanna go for a walk? You look like you need a walk.”

“Lemme shower real quick first. Try not to fall asleep and drown yourself in Steve’s coffee pot, please.”

 

Bucky showers quickly and changes into leggings and a soft, warm sweater, laces up the combat boots she can’t seem to quit, and jams a cap over her messy hair. They walk toward Prospect Park, Lucky taking point.

“So no offense, but is there any particular reason you’re looking like someone died this morning?” Clint asks.

“Technically, everyone I know is long dead, Barton,” Bucky says.

“Okay, not true. You know me. And Nat, and Jan and Tony and Jen. And Steve.”

“Only one of those is the problem though,” Bucky mumbles.

“Can I guess? Is it Steve?”

“It’s always Steve.”

The sun has burned off some of the morning chill by the time they reach the park, and Clint lets Lucky lead them to a bench with a massive tree at its back. It seems secure enough, so they sit. Clint is wise enough not to push or Bucky into speaking; they sit quietly for a few minutes and take turns giving Lucky belly rubs.

“I didn’t remember dogs until I got to pet one for the first time again,” Bucky says, rubbing behind Lucky’s ear. “It was one of the first things that made me happy here.”

Clint hums in acknowledgement.

“What else makes you happy?” he asks.

Bucky freezes and retracts her hand. “I don’t know.” She looks at him critically. “Barton, I only say this because you literally can’t work a drawstring and have almost drowned yourself in coffee on multiple occasions, but. Am I wrong in guessing that you know what I’m feeling?”

“Depends on what you’re feeling, but you seem like an intuitive cookie.”

Bucky rolls her eyes and pulls her feet onto the park bench, drawing shapes on her thigh with the tip of her index finger.

“It’s like...I’m floating and stagnant at the same time. And everyone is miles ahead of me, and I can’t even move.”

“Yeah, I...I know that one,” Clint says. “I mean, I’ve got, like, more issues than a fucking magazine. But it’s like...when someone comes and scoops your brain out, even once you get it back you’ve still lost sight of who you are and what you want and why it’s worth existing in the first place.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, and Clint shrugs.

“Been there, done that, am constantly trying to work through it. Some days are better than others.”

“Don’t I know it,” Bucky says, shifting uncomfortably.

“What else is on your mind?”

Bucky glares at him.

“It’s Steve,” Bucky says; Barton mutters “knew it” under his breath. She shoots him a dirty look. “It’s like...I’ve loved Steve my whole life. It’s the thing that got me out of that hellhole. And I don’t know how to make it go away.”

“What makes you think you should make it go away? Come on, let’s walk back. I’ve slept forty minutes in about two days.”

“Because there is no universe in which I deserve Steve,” Bucky says as they trace their steps back toward the west side of the park. “She’s so good, she deserves someone like Sam, or--”

“I’m just wondering what you think we all did before we were S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Barton says. “Very few of us were in a profession that didn’t involve murder on a regular basis. We all do things under orders that make us lose sleep at night because it's the best option we got. Even Sam, frighteningly well-adjusted though she may be.”

They stop, already in front of Steve’s apartment building.

“Just something to think about. Later, Barnes.”

Bucky heads back up the stairs to Steve’s apartment. It’s only two bedrooms, but still too much space without Steve or Lucky there.

Well, at least that’s two less people to judge her for cutting her losses and going back to bed.

She wakes up groggy and disoriented around five-thirty in the afternoon and puts on a nature documentary while she makes herself eggs over easy and toast, not feeling up to anything more complicated than that.

She zones out watching something about ocean life, and finally drags herself through her bathroom routine before she falls asleep in an uncomfortable position on the couch.

Tomorrow will be better, she promises herself as she takes her meds. It will be better because it has to be.

 

“Cherry rhubarb okay?”

“Um, what?”

“Pie. I brought pie.

Bucky is still half-asleep when she walks into the kitchen the next morning, only to find that Clint is already sitting at the table. Again. At his feet, Lucky gives a half-hearted ruff.

“Did Steve give you a key?”

“Please. I mean, she should, just to save herself the trouble, but her lock is child’s play.”

“Cherry rhubarb is fine, I guess.”

She doesn’t remember rhubarb, but she trusts Clint’s judgment. He hands her a cardboard cup and a triangle shaped plastic container, and sets another container with a slice of savory pie on the floor for Lucky. All of the slices inside look straight from a magazine in their little plastic boxes.

“This must be where pies go when they die,” Clint says, handing her a plastic fork.

Bucky just looks at him.

“Twin Peaks? Aw, no one has made you watch Twin Peaks yet? Not usually my type of show, but Nat made me watch it. Special Agent Dale Cooper is my everything.”

Bucky looks at him. Clint shrugs.

“I’m here, I’m queer, even if my understanding of my own sexuality is vaguer than that and I brought food, eat it.”

Bucky hesitates before sticking her fork carefully through the crust of her pie.

“First pie since the forties?”

She nods, and then takes a bite. The crust is flaky and buttery, the filling tart but sweet. The flavors explode in her mouth, and she closes her eyes for a second, savoring the moment. A smile crosses her face involuntarily.

“It’s good,” she says. Barton nods and takes a bite of his own slice.

They eat in silence, the only noise between them Lucky scarfing down his steak pie.

“Alright,” Clint says, stuffing his empty container back into the paper bag, “So you don’t know what makes you happy. But what do you want?”

It’s a direct continuation of their conversation yesterday, and Bucky’s mouth settles into a frown.

“Haven’t had a lot of time for wanting in the past few years,” she says, bagging her empty container.

“Okay, so you can do one thing right now. Whatever you feel like. What is it?”

Bucky runs a hand through her hair. “Cutting this fucking mop.”

 

“You’ve done this before? When you asked I didn’t really think that, y’know, it would happen. Like, are you really sure you’ve done this before?”

“I’m a leggy blond with many talents. What am I doing, here?”

“A few inches off the end, then whatever,” Bucky says. “Make it look cool.”

“Cool, okay, got it,” he says, clipping sections of her dampened hair on top of her head.

“How do you feel about undercuts? And, uh, are we gonna talk about how you’re pining like a fucking forest? Like, are you gonna do something about it?”

He trims starts trimming, Lucky disinterestedly watching the proceedings from the couch.  

“A what? Show me a picture.”

Clint pauses his trimming to pull out his phone and show her a picture.

“Ooh, I like that, do it. And there’s nothing to do about it.”

“Don’t move your head. What, you’re going to make yourself miserable and live a long terrible life because you don’t think you deserve Steve?”

“I’ve already lived a long, terrible life. Her friendship is enough.” Bucky shrugs.

“Man, please stop moving. But what about when it isn’t?” Clint asks, checking to make sure Bucky’s ends are even.

“I won’t take that risk. I lose everything if she says no. I don’t have anything of my own, even my friends are Steve’s.”

“Hey. Hey. No.” Clint pulls back to look her in the eyes. “I’m hanging around because what, pity? It’s not like Steve is forcing me to be your friend. Also, my dog likes you, so like, you’re basically stuck with us for life.”

The pile of hair clippings on the floor is now downright impressive. He repositions her head and deftly pulls the top half of her hair into a ponytail.

“What if we shave this section here?” he says, handing her a mirror, which Bucky recognizes as belonging to Steve’s bathroom.

“Do it. But what about Jen and Tony and Jan and Natasha?” Bucky asks.

“What about them? They seem to like you. Tony doesn’t lose sleep over just anybody, and you’re still going to the gym with Jen and Jan, right?”

“Yeah, but--”

“But what, dude? Clearly your self-esteem is in the shitter, but trust me when I tell you that most of us have a hard time seeing the good in people. So they must see something pretty damn special in you,” Clint says, never breaking stride.

“What about you?”

“My dog trusts you,” Clint says. “That’s good enough for me.”

  
Steve has been gone for two days. Bucky has watched all of Twin Peaks and started on the list of terrible horror movies Clint left her. She’s felt the smooth patch of scalp at her nape a dozen times and wondered what Steve will think and worked out half-heartedly yesterday, still feeling agitated. Marathonning Twin Peaks probably didn’t help--it was weirder than she expected, and kind of creepy but in a way that made her want pie. After that and the horror movies, she’s half expecting a sinister voice on the end of the line when the phone rings on the second day after Steve has left. It’s Tony, calling to see if she feels like coming in for an arm checkup. Bucky figures she should get out of the apartment instead of sitting around in a depressed funk for the third day in a row, so she tells Tony she’ll be over around three, and then calls to see if Helen can squeeze her in sometime in the early afternoon. Her next appointment isn’t scheduled until Friday, but even Bucky can admit that she’s struggling right now.

With a sigh, she forces herself into the shower and then clothes (even if it’s leggings and a hoodie.)

Helen calls back while she’s in the shower and leaves a message saying yes, she can see Bucky at one-thirty unless it’s an absolute emergency then please come immediately or go to the hospital if she feels like she’s in danger.

Bucky is pretty much always in danger, but it’s more of the cosmic type of hazard that comes with being a former assassin from a global terrorist group. She figures she’s pretty safe from herself, so she putters around the apartment, straightening up, checking the weather, getting her bag together before it’s time to catch her train. The recent run of nice weather has apparently ended and a cold drizzle begins to fall as she descends the station entrance. By the time she reaches the city, it’s full on raining.

Bucky stops in a sandwich shop and buys a fancy grilled cheese and a hot chocolate the size of her head because fuck it. Even with the walk to the station and the train ride in, it’s barely one and she’s a three minute walk from Helen’s building. She’s allowed to indulge for a few minutes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of talking, but also Rhodey. And Carol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What are timelines, what is Civil War. I wanted everyone to be friends, so they are. Timelines are off just because. Also, what is plot. I swear I had one at one point, but it gone. Vague spoilers for Mad Max.

“Ms. Barnes,” Helen says by way of greeting.

Helen is a professional woman in her fifties. Bucky has only ever seen her dress in tasteful neutrals with dramatic but flattering cuts; her signature accessory is a bold, colorful necklace. Today her necklace is coral--a color she favors, Bucky knows from observation.

“Dr. Jones-Roswell,” Bucky says.

Helen makes a face at the formal title.

“What can I help you with today, Bucky?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, sitting heavily in her usual chair next to the window, then frowning as Helen opens her mouth. “No, that’s incorrect. I’m struggling with...my depression flared. I’m feeling irritable and worthless, and it probably doesn’t help that Steve is gone. And I don’t know what to do about it, and then I get frustrated at myself because I’ve like...fucking imprinted on her like a baby duck or something.”

“Alright, let’s go back and unpack a little. I hate to tell you that flares are normal but...we’re still working on finding a treatment that works for you. Nothing is going to be perfect right away. What about Steve being gone makes you feel this way?”

“It’s like…” Bucky shrugs. “I get all antsy because she’s out there and I can’t look after her, even if she’s got a whole team of people who got her back now. She doesn’t need me, not really.”

“But you told me in one of our earliest sessions that Steve was going to let herself die in the helicarrier fight. It sure sounds like she needs you, Bucky.”

“Steve doesn’t deserve my shit, though. There’s always a chance that my skills put her in danger, and my...issues are a lot of baggage.”

“So let me get this straight: You’re feeling guilty for not being able to protect her, but also for having skills that could potentially put her in harm’s way. You’re feeling guilty for your depression, which developed from a period of extended abuse--because let’s not forget that what you went through was certainly abuse. You’re also feeling guilty enjoying Steve’s friendship because...you think she’s not getting anything out of it?”

“Pretty much,” Bucky says.

“That’s a hell of a lot of guilt to have on your back, Ms. Barnes.”

“I’ve done a hell of a lot of things worth having guilt over.”

“Okay, but given the choice, would you go back and do what you’ve done over again?”

“The fuck? Of course not.”

“Well, then consider that you’ve got a fuckload of guilt over things you didn’t choose. I’m not saying that you’re not allowed to feel it over things you’ve done, but it might benefit you to remember that those things were not your choice. It might also benefit you to remember that you also chose to walk away from your mission. You’ve had all your decisions made for you, and the first one you chose was to walk away. I’d say that’s certainly something.”

“I guess.”

“What else is on your mind?”

“Steve, because when is she not?”

Helen sits quietly and waits, which she does when she wants Bucky to bring something up on her own.

“I love her. I’ve always loved her and I think I always will. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

“What do you _want_ to do about it?”

“I just want to be with her. In a romantic way, but if that doesn’t work out that’s fine, too. I want to protect her and cover her back, but.”

“But what? Have you asked her out or told her any of this?”

“No, of course not.” That Helen is even suggesting asking Steve out is mind-boggling. “I may be fucked up, but I do possess a little bit of self-preservation.”

“Alright, but do tell me, what was ever achieved by not trying?”

Bucky hesitates.

“Think on it. You don’t have to do anything, just...consider. If you do one thing for me this week, try to challenge some of your guilt. I promise you’re living with much more than you deserve.”

“What do I deserve?” Bucky says, uncurling herself from her chair.

“Love. Kindness. Happiness. Freedom. Y’know. The basic unalienable rights.”

Tears spring to Bucky’s eyes.

“Thanks, Helen. See you Friday.”

“See you Friday, Bucky.”

“Imperator Furiosa! What’s crackin?” Tony calls from her workbench, barely glancing up from her tablet when Bucky steps out of the elevator.

“You live in a strange little world, Stark,” Bucky says.

“Mad Max? You haven’t seen Mad Max yet? Oh man, I bet I can get an early copy, we should totally--Jarvis, see if we can get that. Then call Carol, Rhodey, and Jan about movie night. Hey, nice haircut.”

Bucky runs her hand over the shaved part self-consciously.

“Stark.”

“What?” The loud music filling the lab quiets.

“I’ve been talking to my therapist and, well. She thinks I have a lot of issues with hanging on to guilt and I want to get this off my chest and say that I’m sorry and brainwashing isn’t really an excuse but it’s the one I’ve got--”

“Oh, are we talking about how you killed my parents now?”

“Um...yes.” Bucky braces herself for the worst.

“You look like you’re about to shit a brick, so let me start off by saying it’s, well, it’s not okay, really, it did take me some time to deal with, there was the whole out of control partying phase but there were some other issues going on--”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let me be square with you, Barnes,” Tony says, leaning across the the workbench. Her face is serious. “I was never the child my father wanted,” she says. “Never the son my father wanted. He never forgave me for that.”

Bucky’s face scrunches in confusion. Tony flicks something on her tablet. Magazine covers and newspaper articles are projected in the air behind Bucky: OUT, Instinct, The Advocate. TIME. The Huffington Post. New York Times.

“I grew up in the spotlight. I transitioned in the spotlight, and I spent a long time resenting all of it.  It really is amazing what you can accomplish out of spite,” Tony says quietly. “My parents had money. I have a fortune. And a cool suit, although the suit is, uh...another layer of a very thick skin. A very expensive layer.”

“Tony, I’m sorry.”

“Well. Dear old dad and I reconciled a little, toward the end, but he was still going to write me out of the will, so I guess I should actually be thanking you.”

“Don’t--please don’t actually thank me but...truce?”

Tony eyes her for a moment, perhaps assessing her seriousness.

“Truce.”

They shake on it.

The arm checkup takes all of five minutes. Tony has a hungry look on her face like she’d like to mess around more and try to get more out of the neural connections, but recognizes that Bucky can only take so much in one day. Bucky is sitting on the couch recovering with a cup of steaming vanilla chai while Tony putters around the workbench when a text from Steve buzzes through on her phone.

“sorry I couldn’t get in touch sooner. just checking in. everything’s fine, be home tomorrow. xx”

“Stark, what does it mean when someone sends you ‘xx’ at the end of a text?” Bucky asks.

“Ooh, Barnes, a paramour?” Tony wiggles her eyebrows suggestively.

“What? No, it’s just Steve.”

“Oh, _just_ Steve. Well, then.”

“Tony.”

“I don’t know. It can mean a bunch of things. I assume she’s sending her affections, unless you two have started fucking and she’s sending love and dirty intentions.”

Bucky rolls her eyes.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

“You just did, though. I’m only trying to help you here, C-3PO. Jarvis, please tell us what ‘xx’ at the end of a text means.”

Stark’s building talks, which was kind of a shock the first time Bucky was at the Tower. She probably isn’t getting over it any time soon.

“According to the top result, an ‘x’ at the end of a text, quote, in the UK is commonly used at the end of a message to represent kisses. Similar to 'Xs and Os'--kisses and hugs--in North America, however 'X' can be and is often used by people of varying familiarity--platonic friendships, siblings, crushes, dating, married, etc.; Usually more Xs means more familiarity. Xs can be seen used between two people of the same sex without being regarded as homosexual. End quote.”

“Thanks, Jarvis. There you have it, Barnes.”

“So it could basically mean anything.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Bucky is dragging her feet leaving the Tower. The concrete knowledge that Steve definitely won’t be home until tomorrow night means that she knows she’s going back to an empty apartment, and it might be too pathetic (even for her) to go to bed when it’s barely dark for the third (fourth…?) day in a row.

Just as she sips the last (cold, mildly disgusting) drops of tea from Tony’s (chipped, grease-stained) mug, Tony wipes her hands and spins her rolling stool to face Bucky.

“You know, if you want to stick around and watch Mad Max, I wasn’t kidding. Jan--aw, Jan can’t come, she’s talking her dumbass ex down from the ledge again. But Carol and Rhodey are upstairs. You’ll like them. They’re both like you. Both military, except Carol has repulsors like...inside her hands. And she can fly.”

Bucky stares at her.

“Uh, anyway, Thai food, have you had it? Because I was gonna get some, and it’s on me.”

“Thai food sounds good.”

Carol would remind Bucky of Steve, except that her hair is in a long, golden-blonde mohawk, where Steve is closer to bleach blonde. And Steve is six feet tall and built like a brick shit house. Rhodey greets Bucky with a quiet hello; Tony greets Rhodey with a hug and a laugh.

“Jane Rhodes, what on earth did you do to your hair?”

Bucky thinks Rhodey’s hair looks lovely; it’s in thick twists with blue and red braided in and piled on top of her head.

“What, the colors? Gotta maintain the brand, which you would know nothing about. You never put red and gold on anything, ever. Obviously.”

Tony gives her a hard stare for a moment.

“Alright. Okay, that’s fair.”

Carol snorts. “Damn straight. I took the liberty of ordering the usual. You,” she says, looking at Bucky, “I didn’t know about, so I got you like, eight different entrees. And dumplings because who doesn’t love dumplings?”

“Steve’s ma used to make the best dumplings, swear,” Bucky says. The words are out before she knew what she was going to say, but flashes of memory--her and Steve kneading the dough, plopping balls of it  into boiling water--confirm the statement’s authenticity.

“Capsicle has been holding back on that one,” Tony says. “Tell her to share with the class when she gets back.”

“The usual protocol, Ma’am? Your food has arrived,” Jarvis says.

“Please and thank you, Jarvis. Is the movie ready?”

“We were only waiting on your arrival. It is ready when you are.”

“Barnes, kick back, relax, I’m just gonna go get the...drinks are that way.” Tony waves her hand toward the kitchen.

“Anyone want anything?” Bucky asks, making her way to the fridge.

“Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Carol says, raising her beer.

“There should be some Stella in there, would you mind grabbing me one?”

Bucky finds the green and white bottle, and chooses a Sam Adams at random for herself.

“Thanks,” Rhodey says. “What, no Russian beer for you?”

“Never really got to taste it,” Bucky says, taking the seat opposite Carol on the couch. “Didn’t have a lot of time for drinking beer.”

“Shit, foot, meet mouth, sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Bucky takes a deep breath, scrutinizing her fingernails. “I don’t remember much of Russia. My file wasn’t even released with the Hydra stuff because they just shipped me around Europe in a cryo tank. I was the early version of a...different project. They recycled me a lot.”

Carol’s mouth hangs open a little.

“Well, now that I’ve killed the mood…” Bucky says, sipping her beer and resisting the urge to make an excuse that would let her escape to Brooklyn.

“Someone killed the mood and it wasn’t me?” Tony says, returning with a box full of plastic bags and styrofoam cartons.

“Don’t worry about it, Bucky. Whatever you say, I promise Tony has already said ten times worse. And more publicly.”

“Slander!”

“Yeah, yeah, you love me,” Rhodey says, digging into a container of colorful vegetables in sauce.

“Unfortunately, I do.”

Bucky tries some of everything. It’s all delicious, and she heaps seconds onto her plate while Jarvis gets the movie started. The dumplings are no better or no worse than Steve’s Ma’s--they’re _different_ and _good_ , and Bucky savors the seasoned pork and tangy ginger sauce.

All food lies forgotten once the opening scene begins. Bucky’s heart races at the sight of Max, chained, used, and branded, helpless and really fucking abused. Her breath comes quickly and she spends several miserable moments trying to calm herself until finally Carol notices and scoots across the couch.

“Can I?” she asks, as Rhodey’s eyes dart uncertainly between them and Tony, who is having the same problem.

Bucky nods, and Carol pulls the plush throw blanket from the back of the couch around Bucky’s shoulders. She takes Bucky’s right hand and just holds it, her other arm around Bucky’s shoulders, and finally the touch and Helen’s breathing exercises ground her enough that she calms down.

Rhodey gets up and comes back with a bottle of water for Bucky and a fresh one for Tony, which they drinks in slow sips.

“Sorry. I forgot,” Tony chokes out.

“You too, huh?” Bucky says

She knows already, of course. S.H.I.E.L.D. files make for interesting reading when sleep won’t come.

The movie is good, even if Bucky spends most of it teared up. Three days of depressive funk means that she cries at Max, at Furiosa’s arm, the wives’ declaration that “We are not things.” And Nux’s redemption. And the ending.

She hastily dries her eyes when the credits start rolling and the lights slowly come back on, and the others graciously ignore her puffy eyes and red nose.

“It was--it was good. Thank you, Tony,” Bucky says as she gets ready to leave.

“You’re welcome,” Tony says. “And, y’know, it doesn’t have to be a one-time thing. You’re always welcome here.”

Bucky thinks about the movie, about survival and revenge and redemption long after Tony’s driver drops her off in Brooklyn.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so...First of all, sorry for the slow update. I know I never really set a day, but I was aiming for faster than like. A week. Unfortunately Adult Responsibilities got in the way of my writing time. I was initially going to have this be one huge part, but then I figured I'd split it up. I'm hoping for only one more longer chapter, but we'll see, I guess. 
> 
> One last disclaimer and I'll let y'all go. I'm cis and also white, so feel free to let me know if I fucked up.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone lives happily ever after, as promised.

Bucky sleeps like the dead (a fucking relief after the past three days) and wakes to the sensation of an unfamiliar weight in her bed. She tenses, but it’s just Steve, curled up awkwardly on the lower left side of Bucky’s stupidly large bed in the guest room. Steve wakes at the movement, blinking slowly.

“Morning,” she says, voice raspy with sleep.

“Hey. What time did you get back?” Bucky can’t resist the urge to reach down and touch Steve, her Steve, and puts a hand on her head to confirm that she is, in fact, in Bucky’s bed right now. She is.

“Nat dropped me off around one. I showered at HQ, and I came in here to check on you and fell asleep.” She yawns and shivers. “Sorry, I’ll go back to my own bed.”

“Steve, it’s three in the morning. Just...you can stay. Get up here.”

Steve shuffles up the bed and Bucky’s glad it’s dark because otherwise Steve would see the intense blush heating her face.

“Get under the covers, moron, you’ll catch a cold.” The window is cracked; Bucky has found she prefers to suffer the cold night air and cozy up under the blankets rather than sleep in a completely closed-off room, and the March air means the room is cool at night so she tugs at the blanket until they're both cocooned in the duvet

“Don’t think I can catch a cold anymore anyway,” Steve mumbles.

“Shut up and sleep,” Bucky says, but she can tell from Steve’s easy, soft breathing that she already is.

 

Bucky wakes at twenty past five and dresses for yoga, feeling better than she has all week. The last few days have left her tense and stiff, and stretching in a hot room sounds pretty fucking good. Steve rolls onto her stomach when Bucky opens her drawer, burying her face in Bucky’s pillow.

“Don’wanna. ‘M not fucking running today.”

“Wasn’t gonna ask you, dummy. Go back to sleep.”

The sight of Steve sprawled in Bucky’s bed sends a thrill through her, and it takes her longer than it should to leave the room.

Outside, the sky is slate gray and a freezing rain has Bucky cursing the March weather. She could have still been in bed with Steve. Fuck. She’s dumber than she thought she was.

The studio is pretty close to Steve’s apartment, and Bucky arrives fifteen minutes early for class, shedding her jacket but still not comfortable enough having her arm exposed to ditch the loose, long-sleeved top she pulled on over her sports bra and tank. The room is sweltering, heating Bucky to the core, and she sets up her mat and begins stretching while the other earlybirds straggle in.

Once class starts, her mind goes blessedly clear. Bucky pushes herself, stretching with the knowledge that she’ll be sore by this afternoon and ready to go again in the morning. She stays for a second class. Two hours of bikram is enough that she can ease herself back into harder workouts without feeling like she took a day off.

It’s going to be a good day.

 

“No Steve? But hey, nice haircut,” Melissa says when Bucky walks into their usual coffee place.

“Would you believe me if I told you that Steve is sleeping in right now?”

“You’re shitting me. She’s one of those people that screams, ‘morning person.’”

“Right? But she was like, doing a thing,” Bucky says, wiggling her eyebrows. “She was out of town the past few days and got in late last night. Otherwise, she’s a complete asshole about waking up early.”

“Oh, my god. I interact with superheroes on an almost daily basis. They tell me about their sleeping habits. What is life.”

Bucky blushes and smiles.

“God. Sorry. The usual?”

“Yeah, for both of us, please. Stevie’ll be mad if she doesn’t get her caffeine.”

Bucky pays, shoving a ten into the tip jar and reluctantly heading back out into the sleety rain with a shiver. The bitter wind rapidly cooled the sweat on her body, making the gross weather feel even grosser. Climbing back in bed is looking more and more appealing, and so she silently unlocks the door to Steve’s apartment, stashing the coffee cups in the microwave to keep them warm and heating the shower water to near scalding.

She showers as quickly as (super)humanly possible, dresses, and grabs the coffee. Steve barely stirs when Bucky places her cup on the nightstand, and Bucky slides into the other side of the bed with her tablet. It’s blessedly warm (thanks, Steve) and the lasting chill of the freezing rain dissipates quickly.

She takes a photo of Steve sleeping, short hair splayed on the pillow and mouth slightly open. Steve still looks better than anyone has a right to, even while sleeping.

Bucky considers making a Twitter and then does it. It takes a while to find a combination of letters that isn’t taken as a username. @jrbbarnes is available, but virtually no one calls her by her given name. @BuckyBarnes is taken but the account is dead, created in November 2009 and seemingly never used for tweeting.

Steve wakes up to the sound of furious typing.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Fuck off.”

“Such language,” Bucky says, never pausing in her typing.

“What are you doing? Oh, coffee.”

“You’re welcome. I’m hacking Twitter.”

“Thanks.” Steve sips her coffee, humming appreciatively. “Why are you hacking Twitter?”

“Get my name as a handle...and...done. This person’s password was ‘password1.’ It took me longer to mask your IP address than it did to get into the account. They could have at least made it more of a challenge.”

Steve shakes her head, grabbing for Bucky’s tablet. She opens the Tumblr app, scrolling through four days’ worth of messages. A blush creeps over her face as she scrolls, and Bucky pretends to ignore it. Instead, she taps out her first tweet.

“Payback. #OCaptainMyCaptain.” She attaches the photo of Steve sleeping and hits send, and then spends the next ten minutes following people. Follow notifications ping in from Tony, Jan, Jen, Carol, Rhodey, and, finally, Steve. On her left, Steve snorts.

“You’re a jerk,” she says, laughing.

“But I’m your favorite jerk,” Bucky says knocking her knee into Steve’s.

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

They sit in companionable silence for a while, until Steve flops back, staring at the ceiling.

“What?”

“This is just like when we were kids, and nothing at all like when we were kids and I’m having a hard time getting my head around it.”

“Who woulda thunk, huh?” Bucky says, setting the laptop to the side and sliding down next to Steve.

“Yeah,” Steve says, unfolding and refolding the sleeve of her coffee cup. “I’m...I’m not happy about how it happened but I’m glad we’re both here. Or I’m getting to be.”

“Then maybe it’s time to stop being such a reckless idiot in the field,” Bucky says.

“Yeah, maybe it is.”

“And maybe it’s time to talk to someone. I do, and she’s a regular human, and she...she helps.”

“Yeah, maybe it is.”

Steve rolls on her side and hugs Bucky around the middle. Bucky puts her left arm around Steve’s shoulders, and they lay like that for a long time, long after the dregs of their coffee have gone cold. Just like when they were kids.

 

They get up eventually, when their stomachs start growling too loud to ignore. Steve showers while Bucky cooks half a carton of eggs, a pile of toast, and a mountain of bacon and sets it all in the oven to keep warm. She’s setting smoothies and more coffee at the island when Steve emerges from her bedroom in a muscle shirt printed with the Hulk, hair dripping into the collar, and stops dead.

“Your hair,” she says, crossing the last few steps over to Bucky and scrutinizing the back of her head. “I didn’t even notice before.”

Bucky pulls her hair elastic out, letting her hair fall around her shoulders. She shakes her head dramatically.

“It’s so short!” Steve says, touching the ends, which still hit Bucky’s shoulder blades. “Pull it up again. Please.”

Bucky complies, twisting her hair back into its usual loose bun.

“Buck, I love it. Who did it?”

A shiver runs through her as Steve runs her fingers over Bucky’s stubbly undercut.

“Clint came over the other day to get Lucky and cut my hair.”

“Oh, Clint got lucky, did he?” Steve teases, smoothing a stray strand of hair into Bucky’s knot. “A hell of a marksman and great at hair. Who the fuck would have guessed.” She steps away. “Buck, it looks so good.”

Bucky turns to the cutlery drawer to hide her blush, handing silverware to Steve and grabbing the plates of food from the warm oven.

“Thanks, Stevie. Maybe after breakfast we can do yours.”

“Would you do it?” Steve asks, the words coming out in a rush.

“I ain’t never cut hair like yours before, are you sure about that?”

“Can’t be any worse than what I got, I’ve just been lopping off the bottom couple inches every few months or so. Anything would be better than this fucking bob.”

“How have you survived this long on your own, honestly.”

“Not very well, actually,” Steve says cheerfully.

 

“You want me to do what?”

“It’s just this,” Steve says, pulling up a picture on her phone.

“No. Nuh-uh. I’m calling Barton.”

 

Clint arrives with Lucky just as Bucky is sliding chocolate banana bread into the oven. Steve’s fucking around on the laptop, doing a short Q&A on her blog.

“Captain,” Clint says, letting Lucky off his leash.

“Hawkeye,” Steve says, typing something quickly and setting the laptop aside.

Bucky calls Lucky over and gives him a thorough belly rubbing while Clint wets Steve’s hair.

“This calls for the big guns,” Clint says, pulling out a set of electric clippers. “Do you want it shaved or buzzed?”

“Just buzzed, please. We can always shave it later anyway.”

“Okie dokie. Here goes nothing.”

 

Clint sticks around after he’s done for coffee and banana bread, which turns into coffee and a House of Cards marathon, which turns into takeout and beer and more House of Cards. Bucky watches Steve almost as much as she watches the screen. Clint did a far better job on Steve’s hair than Bucky ever could. The bottom half is buzzed close while the top is floppy and long enough to pull back under the cowl, and Steve...Steve is radiant, smiling more now than when Bucky first came back. Even then, they had spent weeks tiptoeing around each other.

“What?” Steve says when she catches Bucky staring.

“Nothing,” Bucky says, blushing. “You just look happy. It’s a good look on you.”

 

When Bucky wakes up the next morning, the room is even colder than usual. A layer of wet snow covers the fire escape when she looks outside, so Bucky dresses for the gym instead of outdoor running. Steve rolls out of bed at the last second and makes Bucky wait while she gets ready.

Bucky’s muscles burn pleasantly by the time she and Steve are ready to go. It’s a good end to an otherwise rocky week, Bucky thinks as she and Steve wait for their usual post-workout coffee.

“You have therapy today, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Do you think I could come with you and talk to her about setting up a trial appointment?” Steve asks as they head back up to her apartment.

“Sure. I can call ahead and let her know you’re coming, if you want.”

“Yeah, that might be good. And maybe we could go to lunch and spend some time in the city after? I feel like we haven’t seen each other a whole lot, lately.” Steve says hopefully.

“I’m never going to say no to you, dummy, even if we do spend like, all of our time together. But I get what you mean. That sounds like a good afternoon.”

Steve looks weirdly pleased.

 

Bucky showers and looks through her closet for something nicer than the sweatshirt and leggings she usually wears. She chooses leggings after about ten minutes of intense debate anyway, but at least they’re nice ones with stripes of leather down the sides. It’s not a date, Bucky reminds herself as she pulls a soft, thigh-length olive green sweater on. It’s not a date, no matter how much she wants it to be, but she can still look nice.

She chooses a soft, black, cowl-necked winter coat with matching gloves and black ankle boots and steps into the hallway at the same time Steve emerges from her room, sliding a messenger bag over her head.

“You look nice,” Steve says, blushing.

“You don’t clean up too bad yourself,” Bucky says. Steve is wearing the oversized blue peacoat that complements her eyes, and her hair is teased up in a little quiff. She looks--she looks really good, almost unrecognizable from the woman Bucky fought on the helicarrier.

 

Bucky’s appointment goes well and Steve sets up one of her own for the following week. Steve says she knows a place for lunch, so they walk the mile or so downtown rather than take the subway. She leads them to a bakery, where they order sandwiches, salads, and a pastry each. Steve waves off Bucky’s attempts to pay and hands the cashier her card.

“When was the last time we went ice skating?” Steve asks later, licking chocolate off of her finger.

“Well, it’s been a long time since I was twelve, but...” Bucky says.

“Okay, smartass, I’m trying to ask you if you want to go ice skating.”

“Alright, alright, let’s go ice skating.”

They get a cinnamon rum hot chocolate for the road and walk back toward Midtown.

By all accounts, it’s shaping up to be a perfect afternoon. At Bryant Park they swap out their boots for ice skates and hobble into the rink. Bucky and Steve spend the next hour and a half chasing each other around the rink like children. Steve is stopped at least five times by children who want photographs, and Bucky is happy to play cell phone photographer.

“Do you want kids?” Bucky asks as they tug their boots on.

“I don’t know if I still can,” Steve says. “But sometimes I think. Maybe. It’s hard to see myself getting out early enough for kids.”

They both pull their gloves on in silence.

“Hey, do you mind if I drop off this field report at Avengers Tower? I think Hill is actually in her office today.”

“Yeah, no problem. I already did what I needed to do today.”

The walk is short, but Steve buys them a bag of cinnamon sugar roasted pecans to split on the way there and it’s pretty much the perfect end to the perfect afternoon.

“Ms. Rogers, Ms. Barnes, what can I do for you today?” Jarvis asks when they step into the elevator.

“I’ve got some paperwork for Agent Hill, Jarvis, you know where to go.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

“Steve, this isn’t Hill’s--” Bucky says when the elevator stops.

Bucky hears a chorus of “Surprise!” (spoken, not shouted, so as to not scare the living shit out of her, probably) as the doors open to the communal floor of the tower.

“Oh,” she says.

“Happy Birthday, Buck,” Steve says, pulling her into a hug.

“Oh my god you didn’t,” Bucky says as Steve leads her into the common area.

“Oh, but I did.”

Bucky looks around the room and sees familiar faces, and a few unfamiliar ones--Tony, Jan, Rhodey, Jen, Carol, Clint, Natasha. Her friends, Bucky thinks, and has to turn away to swipe at the tears gathering in her eyes. She’s introduced to the former S.H.I.E.L.D. crew and someone named Kate, whose facial expressions are frighteningly similar to Clint’s. Thor bounds up and envelopes her in a warm but potentially bone-crushing hug, though only after asking her permission.

“When the fuck did you have time to plan a party?” Bucky asks after she has met and greeted everyone.

“To be fair, the first day and a half of our mission was recon,” Steve says.

“And we know Tony,” Natasha adds.

“They don’t call me the queen of parties for nothing,” Tony says.

“They don’t call you the queen of parties, full stop,” Rhodey says from the bar.

“That’s fair.”

The room has settled into a hum of conversation, so Bucky helps herself to a beer and hands one to Steve.

“Ma’am, the food has arrived.”

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Tony says. “I got pizza, because who hates pizza, am I right? Chicago style, right, Cap?”

A look of such utter betrayal crosses Steve’s face that Bucky bursts into laughter.

“At least someone thinks I’m funny,” Tony says.

“I don’t fuck with Chicago style, Stark,” Steve says seriously. “It’s an abomination created against God’s will.”

The pizza is good. It has a perfect cheese-crust-sauce ratio, and Bucky only holds back from eating more because Stark promises dessert. Dessert turns out to be a chocolate fudge cake, and Steve has stuck 9 and a 5 candles into the top of the cake.

“You’re hilarious, Rogers.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Tony lowers the lights and they all begin to sing Happy Birthday, and Bucky is overwhelmed with gratitude. She’s happy, she realizes. Her wish will stay between her and her grave, but the cake is rich and good.

As the party returns to a quiet lull, Bucky steps onto the balcony off of the living room and breathes in the cold night air. Who would’ve guessed that she’d live long enough to become a person--and one valued by friends, at that--again. Who would have fucking guessed.

“Here.” Steve’s voice is behind her, and Steve holds Bucky’s coat out to her, already bundled in her own coat.

“Thanks.”

“Are you okay? Should I not have thrown the party?” Steve asks, biting her lip.

“No, the party is...I actually forgot my birthday. I just didn’t really think it mattered, and this...you make me feel like it does,” Bucky says, staring at the floor of the balcony.

“It does matter,” Steve says, stepping closer to Bucky. “You matter,” she says.

Bucky leans back against the balcony railing and they stand in companionable silence, watching traffic pass by down below. Suddenly, it’s too much, standing here alone with Steve on what has been possibly one of the best days of her life. Clint and Helen’s advice rings through her head and Bucky feels her heart start to beat exponentially faster.

“When I came back, the time I came through your window, you told me we had a date. What kind of date did you mean?” The words are out almost before she realizes she’s said them, and a sense of sheer self-preservation won’t let her look anywhere besides the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Steve step even closer, in between her spread legs.

“I meant this kind of date,” Steve says, and kisses her on the cheek.

Bucky’s head snaps up and she looks Steve in the eye. They’re not touching anywhere, but Bucky is electric and she half wonders if Steve can’t feel it too.

“Stephanie Grant Rogers. Ain’t no one ever teach you how to kiss before?”

“Well, I’m as stubborn as they come. You might need to demonstrate for me.” Steve’s eyes are sparkling.

“Come here.”

Bucky gently pulls Steve to her, getting one hand firmly in the lapel of Steve’s coat and gently cupping her face with the other. Steve’s arms snake around Bucky’s back.

Steve doesn’t miss this time and it feels right, so fucking right when their lips meet.

“You don’t know how long I’ve loved you,” Steve says.

“That’s very forward of you, Rogers. If it’s anywhere near as long as I’ve loved you, we’re both fucking morons. I, uh. I think we’re overdue for some good things in our lives.”

Steve smiles and tears well up in her eyes.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Bucky says, pulling Steve closer and wrapping her arms around Steve’s middle. Steve is six feet tall, but she still feels small in Bucky’s arms.

“I just never thought we’d get here,” Steve says into Bucky’s coat. “I never let myself hope too hard, planned for the worst case scenarios, and this is better than all of them.”

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you, Stevie.”

“You’re you. It’s good enough for me,” Steve says, and kisses Bucky again.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, first of all I would like to apologize for this taking so long, so I'm very sorry this took so long. Did you know that full time jobs pretty much suck away your will to live? Because I didn't. Secondly, I was thinking of adding a little epilogue of snuggling and Steve giving Bucky her birthday present and some little short scenes or something, or if anyone has any requests, I'd be happy to try and honor them. Hopefully it won't take me a month to write it, this time. 
> 
> This whole thing is unbetaed, and all mistakes are my own. I'll try to go back and fix any that I catch, but I wanted to get this chapter posted without further delay.
> 
> So. That's all I got. It's been fun, and thank you if you took the time to read and patiently stuck out my hiatus!

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter: Interview fallout and tons of Lucky the Pizza Dog. Also Clint but mostly Lucky.


End file.
